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An important
purpose of this website is to help you be self
reliant. We do this in a number of ways, the end
result being for you to learn how to
do-it-yourself. At the very least, to get enough
knowledge to know when someone else is doing a
good job. The more self reliant people are, the
stronger a community can be. Dependent people do
not add up to strength.
Preparing an
'electricity dependent' lifestyle to be ready
for an extended power failure (72 hours, plus)
is one of the bigger challenges of crisis
management. With electricity so abundantly
available and generally so reliable, it can be
difficult to even get motivated to do
something.
The best thing
you can do to raise the issues that surface when
the electricity goes down is to turn it off (all
homes have an internal or external main switch).
In this case, in particular, experience is the
most effective teacher.
Meanwhile, take
an organized approach to self reliant energy
preparations.
ENERGY
ISSUES
•
Assess Your Need For Electricity.
Before designing
a power system for a home, you first need to
know how much power you use and when. The less
electricity you use to maintain your level of
comfort, the easier it is to design (and the
less expensive) an alternative power system for
your home. Also, an assessment makes it easier
to determine which appliances can be made more
efficient. And you can make choices as to which
electrical loads have more priority than
others.
•
Determine Ways To Reduce Energy
Consumption.
Start by
evaluating your home, where is energy lost? Then
make a plan to fix those areas. There are a lot
of energy saving appliances that can be phased
in; and be sure to consider self reliance as you
choose your options.
Make
choices about which 'appliances' you can
convert to alternative power (human power;
battery power; solar power; wind power . .
.)
•
Recognize Which Devices You Can and Can't Do
Without
Some things are
not needed to support life, you'll need to
determine those. To some, the coffee pot is a
life support system. I'm talking about your
heat, lights and plumbing. People got along
quite well without electricity and plumbing for
centuries (even I lived like that when I was a
boy on my Dad's ranch); but no one will argue
that the modern conveniences are
nice.
Try to think of
ways to maintain your level of comfort...What
must you have (can you power these
alternatively?), what can you do without (make
it easy to shut those off).
• Determine
the most viable solutions for a back-up power
plan.
This will be
determined by your circumstances, where you
live, your skills, how fast you can learn, what
resources are available (local labor, materials
and components), how much time you have, how
much money you can spend, etc...
• Consider
installing a back-up generator, preferably with
a battery bank and an inverter to maximize your
fuel efficiency. It is more efficient to operate
a generator at about 80% rated power for a two
hours than to operate it at 20% for eight hours.
So you operate it to charge your batteries and
to do heavy electrical loads, then shut it down
and operate off your batteries for extended
light loads.
• Consider
converting to 'off-grid' living.
All the above
statements lead to this, true self reliance
means not having someone else controlling your
electric switch. It also means not having to pay
someone else for your power and not being
dependent on their maintenance
procedures.
• Some
Conserve Energy Tips
• Choose
energy efficiency (light bulbs, appliances,
heating systems,
vehicle (there's
lots of information on fuel savers elsewhere on
this site)...
• Turn off
lights when not in (This function can be made
automatic)
• Use pedal
power whenever possible. At the very least
you'll develop a sincere appreciation of how
much energy it takes to produce
electricity.
• When
cooking is nearly done, turn off the oven and
allow cooking to continue.
• When
boiling water, always turn down the heat to
where the water just barely boils. Water never
gets hotter than it's boiling temperature and
adding extra heat just makes the water turn to
steam faster.
• Be sure
the hot air from your dryer is directed indoors
in winter, this adds both moisture and heat into
your air (both are needed in the winter); but
you'll want to put a filter on the air to
collect the lint.
•
Generating Your Own Power
The fast fix for
home power is to purchase a 220 volt power
generator. If you need the generator only
occasionally, a gasoline or propane one will do.
If you use it a lot, diesel is your
answer.
We recommend
using a receptacle to plug the generator to your
home (instead of hard wiring). The plug in
method allows you to bypass a bunch of
electrical regulations, and allows for safe,
easy generator portability.
It is vital that
you have an electrician install a double-pole,
double throw switch so that your generator is
never providing power at the same time you are
connected to the utility's power. Why? First,
your generator will not be in 'phase' with the
utility and will burn up. Second, if the utility
went down, whatever caused that will likely kill
your generator too. Third, you don't want to
shock, or kill, some innocent
lineman.
•
True Eco-friendly Home Power
There are
several levels of self-reliance and lots of
eco-friendly choices. All of them tend to be
pricey, but the peace of mind is hard to beat.
Further, if you're willing to do much of the
work yourself, you can lower the costs while
learning valuable skills. As further incentive,
some people can actually sell their excess power
to their local utility. And with your new
skills, you can make a living helping others
become self reliant.
•
Traditional' Alternative Power Systems
Include: (in order of preference)
•
Solarvoltaic (solar cells)
• Wind
power
• Hydro
power
• Thermal
power has several categories: (get heat with
solar or bio-fuels)
internal and
external combustion engines operating on
bio-fuels; solar parabolic, for powering a heat
engine; direct conversion of heat to electricity
with thermocouples and direct conversion of heat
to electricity with infrared
photovoltaics.
• Power
System Design Thoughts
Generally
independent power systems operate on 12 or 24
volts DC, because batteries have been the most
practical means to store electricity. Storing
electricity is important for many reasons,
including:
• It allows
you to have a smaller power producer (a smaller
hydro generator for example) which reduces
initial cost of the power system while allowing
the power system to provide your peak power
needs. The power system stores up a little power
over an extended time when you are not using it
to use at higher power rate when you do need
it.
• It allows
steady power availability when the power supply
is intermittent, many power systems operate only
when the sun shines, the wind blows, the water
flows or when you are burning a fuel. Storage
allows you to efficiently gather a bunch of
energy when it is available to use later when it
is not.
That said, back
to design: If you are going with an
'off-the-shelf' system, you will need to
carefully choose your system components to fit
your personal situation, we list resources that
will help you get started.
Here at
Eagle-Research, we go a step beyond; for
example, building our own 220 volt battery
storage and inverter system. This is simpler and
more efficient than most of the low voltage
battery-inverter systems. So we'll be teaching
people how to do their own, from scrap and
surplus parts. And then there is our innovative
generator technology, which allows people to
build their own generators that will run on any
fuel, interface with the utility grid and turn
their electric meter backwards.
And lastly
Eagle-Research is exploring gathering energy
from sources not utilized by conventional
utilities; like directly gathering electricity
from the earth and sky; and using gravity to
power generators.
There are a lot
of resources that will teach you all you need to
know to develop your own power system, find some
of those resources under the link button
at the bottom of the page. In particular I
recommend the 'Solar Living Sourcebook'
published by Real Goods.
Here at
Eagle-Research, we are developing alternative
free energy sources which you can review on
other pages in this site. These innovative
technologies will drive the civilization of our
future. Some of the spinoffs of this research
are practical products NOW; see the eagle
products button at the top of the
page.
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